Louis Weichmann

[Susan Higginbotham]

(08-31-2015 09:59 AM)L Verge Wrote:  

(08-31-2015 07:26 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Didn't someone make a statement to the effect that John Surratt had visited Weichmann after hours at the War Department? I'm sure I read it, but I haven't been able to track down the source. Does anyone know?

I may be wrong, but I think Surratt made that claim in his Rockville lecture. You might also have read it in Guy Moore's often overlooked work The Case of Mrs. Surratt (1954). Fr. Alfred Isacsson's dissertation also makes the claim that "Louis Weichmann was associated with Surratt in this work of carrying dispatches...Weichmann pilfered copies of dispatches from the War Department, where he worked and would turn them over to Surratt."

John Brophy and Henri B. de Ste. Marie also made statements that Weichmann was pro-Southern in his leanings. Michael Schein (John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away) mentions that the latter sent notice to the U.S. Consul-General in Montreal shortly after the assassination in which he expressed surprise that Weichmann had not been arrested too because of his strong secessionist feelings.

Thanks! You were right; it was the Rockville lecture. Of course, John Surratt isn't an unimpeachable source, but it's interesting that Weichmann didn't refute this claim in his book (at least not that I saw through a skim). I also find it interesting that Colonel Foster, writing about Weichmann before the conspiracy trial, stated that "Large quantities of envelopes, with the official frank of the office of the Commissary General of Prisoners, was [sic] found in his room."